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Longtime activist hopes to resume protesting after retiring from priesthood By John Oliver Mason The Rev. John McNamee is looking forward to retiring next year — not so he can relax in a rocking chair, but so he’ll have time to engage in protests the way he used to. Father McNamee was “very much a priest of the ‘60s and early ‘70s,” demonstrating outside the FederalBuilding, at 6th and Market Sts., against the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons. “I haven’t been attentive to protesting the Iraq war as I should, because of my parish responsibilities,” he says. In his 25 years at St. Malachy Parish, 11th and Master Sts., he has found that “my life becomes busier and busier with the people I am privileged to serve.” Next May, however, he turns 75, mandatory retirement age, “which will mean some time and space to vigil and protest more often.” Civil rights, the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons are among the causes Father McNamee has tackled, often with his friends, the Berrigan brothers, controversial Vietnam-era antiwar Jesuit priests. How do his parishioners react to Father McNamee’s activism? Parishioners supportive “That’s one of the blessings of being in an inner-city parish,” he says. “In this neighborhood, people experience first-hand the poor housing, poor schools and deterioration of the city, which in my mind and theirs is directly connected to nuclear arms and militarism.” The Catholic Church, Father McNamee notes, has called the arms race “a crime against the poor.” He says he doesn’t “harangue” from the pulpit about his activist causes, but he doesn’t ignore them, either. He quotes Protestant theologian Karl Barth: “The preacher should preach with the Scriptures in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” Father McNamee has put his thoughts to paper in his memoirs, Diary of a City Priest (Sheed&Ward, Kansas City, $16.95 in paperback) and several volumes of poetry (his latest is Donegal Suite (Dufour Editions, Chester Springs, Pa., $24.95 cloth, $13.95 paperback) “The only time I’ve been able to write,” says Father McNamee, “is when I’m away from here … when I have leisure and time away from the endless tasks of this parish, this school, the door, the phone.” ‘Church of the poor’ John McNamee was the oldest son in a large Irish Catholic family whose “lives revolved around the parish, the parish school, the sisters and the priest.” At St. ThomasMoreHigh School in Overbrook (now closed), all his teachers were priests, “so the men I knew [who were interested in] books, ideas, thought, philosophy, theology — were priests.” After high school, he went “up the street” to St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and in 1959, was ordained. He has been at St. Malachy for 25 years. In Diary of a City Priest, Father McNamee questions whether the Church deals adequately with inner-city issues. “Often in church,” he writes, “one has the impression that nothing is going on or happening, and we do Mass so often because we do it so poorly, [using] repetition as a substitute for reverence and substance … How I yearn for … a bishop who would come and live among the abandoned poor in North Philadelphia and suffer the car theft and burglary and hazards that these people suffer every day ...” Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, “recognized the Catholic Church as the church of the poor,” Father McNamee says, but today, the public does not have that impression of the Church. “I realize the world neither begins nor ends at 11th and Master Sts. Nor does the Church exist for itself. My reading of the washing of the feet of his Apostles by the Lord is that the Church exists to be a foot washer, a servant of the poor.”
Retired computer expert hosts Cajun dance parties in his West Mt. Airy home Warning to seniors:‘The Cripple Step’may be hazardous By John Oliver Mason Sam Dorfman greets me with a Cajun music CD and a demonstration of “The Cripple Step.” “You step down on one foot and drag the other — step drag, step drag, step drag,” he chants, but “if you do it too strenuously, you’ll cripple yourself.” Dorfman recalls Cajun dance parties, at which “an even wilder version of the Cripple Step was taught. People would come and try it one time, and their feet would hurt them and they wouldn’t come back. “The way I teach it is more relaxed; you don’t stomp on the ground as much. But it’s still strenuous. I worry about older people doing it, unless they’re in really good shape.” Original two-step the same Dorfman, a retired computer programmer, became interested in Cajun dancing when he attended an evening school dance class, at which it was taught. “I was doing regular jitterbug, and I thought this would help me improve the different steps,” he says. “It did improve my steps, but I fell in love with this.” Cajun music — and Zydeco, which is related to it — were developed in New Orleans by the Cajuns, people descended from French Canadians driven out of Canada, and the Creoles, people descended from black escaped slaves and Native Americans. The music, he says, “became more jazzy and more complicated, and that became Zydeco, but the original Cajun two-step stayed almost the same.” Dancers outnumbered The TK Club in Conshohocken, says Dorfman, features Zydeco music, so he uses his home on Upsal Street in West Mount Airy to host Cajun dance parties. One Sunday a month, Dorfman hosts evening parties, after instruction in Cajun dance in the afternoon. “I started with CDs,” says Dorfman, “but I found out that Allan Willinger was running a Cajun jam at a nightclub in New Jersey. I approached him and said, ‘Would you like to jam at my place?’ He brought his jam group to my place, and he had this e-mail list, which started growing and growing. A couple of months ago, we had 20 musicians; there wasn’t much room to dance.” Dorfman doesn’t charge anything for the parties. “I’m not trying to make any money out of it,” he said “I just want an opportunity to have this music around here.” If you’d like to get on Sam Dorfman’s e-mail list, contact him at sam@philly-direct.com. Publisher like matchmaker, linking books to readers sharing his zeal By Ann L. Rappoport Paul Dry fits none of the stereotypes you might have about elitist book publishers or Harvard graduates. Paul Dry Books, Inc., launched in 2000 from an office near Rittenhouse Square, is the 63-year-old publisher’s third career. Dry insists he’s not an “intellectual;” he doesn’t pretend to have all the answers or trust himself to “judge” authors’ greatness. He enjoys the search, delighting in discovering unusual books to love and share — books he selects “to awaken, delight and educate.” He takes tremendous pleasure in trying to match his six to eight titles per year with readers who will enjoy them as much as he does. His enthusiasm contagious, as a publisher, Paul Dry is like a matchmaker. Taught college seminars Dry spent almost 20 years as a stock-options trader in Philadelphia. In his youth, he and his wife were Peace Corps volunteers. He also worked in his family’s manufacturing business. How did the unlikely transition from stock market to book market come about? He credits it to good luck and the graciousness of his brother, a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont. Many colleges devote the month of January, between fall and spring semesters, to different types of learning formats. By invitation, Dry spent six Januaries co-teaching seminars on influential books. This January Experience was “a revelation,” he says, that translated directly into his book-publishing venture. Dry, a Center City resident, likens book clubs to other wholesome habits, like “eating fruits and vegetables and brushing your teeth;” he’s belonged to one for 21 years. It provides a great chance, he says, to get together with friends, have refreshments, and talk about a book everyone has read. Like falling in love Reading came slowly to Paul Dry. In first grade, he was assigned to the lowest reading track in the class. Even now, he sub-vocalizes — silently sounding out the words while he reads. Good books, Dry says, claim a reader’s emotional involvement and energy. “They give readers a shared experience. Falling in love with a person, he believes, is a good template for falling in love with a deep book; “you want to understand it more.” Older readers like to probe, he notes, and discuss their reactions: “Engaged in these conversations, you’re ageless.” Dry won’t consider retiring unless the “business stops being fun.” His business partner is a former neighbor, John Corensweet. A third full-timer and one part-timer comprise the Paul Dry Books team, collaborating to produce a catalogue offering 42 titles to date. The exciting array spans pop culture with Rocky Stories, by Michael Vitez and Tom Gralish of the Philadelphia Inquirer; political/religious satire, with Cries in the New Wilderness, by Mikhail Epstein, translated from Russian by Eve Adler; and American jazz, with William Zinsser’s Mitchell & Ruff. “I’m profoundly grateful when a stranger reads one of our books,” Dry says. “Some books may catch your fancy. They all have a punch.” For more information, you may contact www.pauldrybooks.com or 215-231-9939.
Publisher like matchmaker, linking books to readers sharing his zeal By Ann L. Rappoport Paul Dry fits none of the stereotypes you might have about elitist book publishers or Harvard graduates. Paul Dry Books, Inc., launched in 2000 from an office near Rittenhouse Square, is the 63-year-old publisher’s third career. Dry insists he’s not an “intellectual;” he doesn’t pretend to have all the answers or trust himself to “judge” authors’ greatness. He enjoys the search, delighting in discovering unusual books to love and share — books he selects “to awaken, delight and educate.” He takes tremendous pleasure in trying to match his six to eight titles per year with readers who will enjoy them as much as he does. His enthusiasm contagious, as a publisher, Paul Dry is like a matchmaker. Taught college seminars Dry spent almost 20 years as a stock-options trader in Philadelphia. In his youth, he and his wife were Peace Corps volunteers. He also worked in his family’s manufacturing business. How did the unlikely transition from stock market to book market come about? He credits it to good luck and the graciousness of his brother, a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont. Many colleges devote the month of January, between fall and spring semesters, to different types of learning formats. By invitation, Dry spent six Januaries co-teaching seminars on influential books. This January Experience was “a revelation,” he says, that translated directly into his book-publishing venture. Dry, a Center City resident, likens book clubs to other wholesome habits, like “eating fruits and vegetables and brushing your teeth;” he’s belonged to one for 21 years. It provides a great chance, he says, to get together with friends, have refreshments, and talk about a book everyone has read. Like falling in love Reading came slowly to Paul Dry. In first grade, he was assigned to the lowest reading track in the class. Even now, he sub-vocalizes — silently sounding out the words while he reads. Good books, Dry says, claim a reader’s emotional involvement and energy. “They give readers a shared experience. Falling in love with a person, he believes, is a good template for falling in love with a deep book; “you want to understand it more.” Older readers like to probe, he notes, and discuss their reactions: “Engaged in these conversations, you’re ageless.” Dry won’t consider retiring unless the “business stops being fun.” His business partner is a former neighbor, John Corensweet. A third full-timer and one part-timer comprise the Paul Dry Books team, collaborating to produce a catalogue offering 42 titles to date. The exciting array spans pop culture with Rocky Stories, by Michael Vitez and Tom Gralish of the Philadelphia Inquirer; political/religious satire, with Cries in the New Wilderness, by Mikhail Epstein, translated from Russian by Eve Adler; and American jazz, with William Zinsser’s Mitchell & Ruff. “I’m profoundly grateful when a stranger reads one of our books,” Dry says. “Some books may catch your fancy. They all have a punch.” For more information, you may contact www.pauldrybooks.com or 215-231-9939.
